Why Did Korea Flip-flop? Middle Class Helps Push New Reforms

July 12, 1987|By Joji Konoshima, Special to The Sentinel

Recent events in Korea have dramatized the country's deepening political crisis. We see nightly television accounts of students and militants battling police with sticks, stones and homemade bombs. Well-organized government security forces -- numbering 120,000 and using the most refined and sophisticated techniques of enforcement -- have never lost control.

The regime of President Chun Doo Hwan, while under duress, is stable.

But suddenly, after indications of growing support for the student-led demonstrations from the general Korean community, particularly the burgeoning middle class, the government has announced astonishing concessions to the opposition. Just last week Chun ordered amnesty for 2,335 dissidents who previously were banned from political activity.

Why did the government, which did not hesitate to use its military to stop a student uprising at Kwangju University in 1980, and whose police force has injured hundreds in recent nationwide demonstrations, suddenly decide to make such radical concessions?

Are we witnessing in South Korea another ''People's Revolution'' such as that which occurred in the Philippines against the corrupt military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos?

In the Philippines, the military was a vocal, visible force in backing Corazon Aquino's revolution and her election as that country's president in 1986. But the Korean military, 600,000 strong and internationally respected for its capability and discipline, has been a silent partner to the political evolution in Korea today.

It was not always so silent.

I am reminded of many conversations with high-level Korean military leaders who expressed strong convictions that the military should not be directly, or rather visibly, involved in politics.

That is an astonishing realization given Korea's recent political history in which presidential power has changed hands only through violence and only with military backing.

It is further astonishing given the key government positions currently held by military or former military men.

While recent events have shown that visible military involvement in Korean politics is not necessary to bring about significant change, it is wrong to assume that the Korean military hasn't been fully involved behind closed doors in bringing about the Chun regime's concessions.

The concessions -- including free and democratic presidential elections, freedom for political prisoners, including the reinstatement of a leading Chun opponent, Kim Dae Jung, and easing press censorship -- reveal real changes in Korea's political and social structures.

At first glance the success of the recent protests in bringing about changes can be attributed to several factors:

-- For the first time the opposition Reunification Democratic Party, RDP, has, even if only temporarily, been able to present a unified front. In the past, Chun's Democratic Justice Party, DJP, could count on a divided, and thus weaker, opposition calling for the government to scrap its current

electoral college in favor of a system that allows more participation by all Koreans.

In fact, Chun used the opposition's internal fighting to his advantage when in April he decided to delay talks on political reforms until after the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul. That decision led to the demonstrations, and in the past two months, the opposition has found more unity and strength with Kim Young Sam as its political spokesman and Kim Dae Jung as its symbolic leader. -- For the first time the opposition party has been able to pull support from the growing Korean middle class, which wants a greater say in choosing national leaders.

Chun and Roh Tae Woo -- a former general and Chun's chosen successor -- are not as concerned about student and clergy uprisings as they are about stirrings in the large, relatively new Korean middle class, which has profited most from Korea's sizable economic gains.

-- For the first time Chun and Roh have a time constraint for beginning reform. In terms of national honor and future economic considerations, it is imperative that the Olympic Games scheduled for August 1988 be flawless.

In the past, Korean leaders made promises of democracy, but without time constraints those promises never came to fruition. Because the eyes of the world will be focused on the Olympics, the leaders of the ruling party now have a vested interest in making their domestic politics look as impressive as their economic statistics.

-- Chun has said for some time that he wants a peaceful transition when he leaves office to set an example for all future South Korean leaders. If successful, a peaceful presidential succession before Chun's announced resignation in February 1988 will be a first in Korea -- a legacy Chun wants to future generations and history books.